ChapterHouse: Dune dc-6

by Frank Herbert

  "The Bene Gesserit may be the only ones ever to create the all-powerful jury," Murbella said. "Juries are not popular with legalists. Juries oppose the law. They can ignore judges."

  She laughed in the darkness. "Evidence! What is evidence except those things you are allowed to perceive? That's what Law tries to control: carefully managed reality."

  Words to divert him, words to demonstrate her new Bene Gesserit powers. Her words of love fell flat.

  She speaks them out of memory.

  He saw this bothered Odrade almost as much as it dismayed him. Murbella did not notice either reaction.

  Odrade had tried to reassure him. "Every new Reverend Mother goes through an adjustment period. Manic at times. Think of the new ground under her, Duncan!"

  How can I not think of it?

  "First law of bureaucracy," Murbella told the darkness.

  You do not divert me, love.

  "Grow to the limits of available energy!" Her voice was indeed manic. "Use the lie that taxes solve all problems." She turned toward him in the bed but not for love. "Honored Matres played the whole routine! Even a social security system to quiet the masses, but everything went into their own energy bank."

  "Murbella!"

  "What?" Surprised at the sharpness of his tone. Didn't he know he was talking to a Reverend Mother?

  "I know all of this, Murbella. Any Mentat does."

  "Are you trying to shut me up?" Angry.

  "Our job is to think like our enemy," he said. "We do have a common enemy?"

  "You're sneering at me, Duncan."

  "Are your eyes orange?"

  "Melange doesn't allow that and you know... Oh."

  "The Bene Gesserit need your knowledge but you must cultivate it!" He turned on a glowglobe and found her flaring at him. Not unexpected and not really Bene Gesserit.

  Hybrid.

  The word leaped into his mind. Was it hybrid vigor? Did the Sisterhood expect this of Murbella? The Bene Gesserit surprised you sometimes. You found them facing you in odd corridors, eyes unwavering, faces masked in that way of theirs and, behind the masks, unusual responses brewing. That was where Teg learned to do the unexpected. But this? Idaho thought he could grow to dislike this new Murbella.

  She saw this in him, naturally. He remained open to her as to no other person.

  "Don't hate me, Duncan." No pleading but something deeply hurt behind the words.

  "I'll never hate you." But he turned off the light.

  She nestled against him almost the way she had before the Agony. Almost. The difference tore at him.

  "Honored Matres see the Bene Gesserit as competitors for power," Murbella said. "It's not so much that men who follow my former Sisters are fanatics, but they're made incapable of self-determination by their addiction."

  "Is that the way we are?"

  "Now, Duncan."

  "You mean I could get this commodity at another store?"

  She chose to assume he was talking about Honored Matre fears. "Many would abandon them if they could." Turning toward him fiercely, she demanded a sexual response. Her abandon shocked him. As though this might be the last time she could experience such ecstasy.

  Afterward, he lay exhausted.

  "I hope I'm pregnant again," she whispered. "We still need our babies."

  We need. The Bene Gesserit need. No longer "they need."

  He fell asleep to dream he was in the ship's armory. It was a dream touched by realities. The ship remained a weapons factory as it actually had become. Odrade was talking to him in the dream armory. "I make decisions of necessity, Duncan. Little likelihood you'll break out and run amok."

  "I am too much the Mentat for that!" How self-important his dream voice! I'm dreaming and I know I dream. Why am I in the armory with Odrade?

  A list of weapons scrolled before his eyes.

  Atomics. (He saw big blasters and deadly dusts.) Lasguns. (No counting the various models.) Bacteriologicals.

  The scroll was interrupted by Odrade's voice. "We can assume smugglers concentrate as usual on small things that bring a big price. "

  "Soostones, of course." Still self-important. I'm not that way!

  "Assassination weapons," she said. "Plans and specifications for new devices."

  "Theft of trade secrets is a big item with smugglers." I'm insufferable!

  "There are always medicines and the diseases that require them," she said.

  Where is she? I can hear her but I can't see her. "Do Honored Matres know our universe harbors blackguards not above sowing the problem before providing the solution?" Blackguards? I never use that word.

  "All things relative, Duncan. They burned Lampadas and butchered four million of our finest."

  He awoke and sat upright. Specifications for new devices! There it was in delicate detail, a way to miniaturize Holzmann generators. Two centimeters, no more. And much cheaper! How was that smuggled into my mind?

  He slipped out of bed, not awakening Murbella, and groped his way to a robe. He heard her snuffle as he let himself out into the workroom.

  Seating himself at his console, he copied the design from his mind and studied it. Perfect! Englobement for sure. He transmitted to Archives with a flag for Odrade and Bellonda.

  With a sigh, he sat back and examined his design once more. It vanished in a return to his dream scroll. Am I still dreaming? No! He could feel the chair, touch the console, hear the field buzzing. Dreams do that.

  The scroll produced cutting and stabbing weapons, including some designed to introduce poisons or bacteria into enemy flesh.

  Projectiles.

  He wondered how to stop the scroll and study details.

  "It's all in your head!"

  Humans and other animals bred for attack scrolled past his eyes, hiding the console and its projection. Futars? How did Futars get in there? What do I know about Futars?

  Disruptors replaced the animals. Weapons to cloud mental activity or interfere with life itself. Disruptors? I've never heard that name before.

  Disruptors were succeeded by null-G "seekers" designed to hunt specific targets. Those I know.

  Explosives next, including ones to spread poisons and bacteriologicals.

  Deceptives, to project false targets. Teg had used those.

  Energizers appeared next. He had a private arsenal of those: ways of increasing capacities of your troops.

  Abruptly, the shimmering net from his vision replaced scrolling weapons and he saw the elderly couple in their garden. They glared at him. The man's voice became audible. "Stop spying on us!"

  Idaho gripped the arms of his chair and jerked himself forward but the vision disappeared before he could study details.

  Spying?

  He sensed a residue of the scroll in his mind, no longer visible but a musing voice... masculine.

  "Defenses often must take on characteristics of the attack weapons. Sometimes, however, simple systems can divert the most devastating weapons."

  Simple systems! He laughed aloud. "Miles! Where the hell are you, Teg? I have your disguised attack vessels! Inflated decoys! Empty except for a miniature Holzmann generator and lasgun." He added this to his Archives transmissions.

  When he was finished, he asked himself once more about the visions. Influencing my dreams? What have I tapped?

  In every spare minute since becoming Teg's Weapons Master, he had been calling up Archival records. There had to be some clue in all of that massive accumulation!

  Resonances and tachyon theory held his attention for a time. Tachyon theory figured in Holzmann's original design. "Techys," Holzmann had called his energy source.

  A wave system that ignored light speed's limits. Light speed obviously did not limit foldspace ships. Techys?

  "It works because it works," Idaho muttered. "Faith. Like any other religion."

  Mentats squirreled away much seemingly inconsequential data. He had a storehouse marked "Techys" and proceeded to go through it without satisfaction.


  Not even Guild Navigators professed knowledge of how they guided foldspace ships. Ixian scientists made machines to duplicate Navigator abilities but still could not define what they did.

  "Holzmann's formulae can be trusted."

  No one claimed to understand Holzmann. They merely used his formulae because they worked. It was the "ether" of space travel. You folded space. One instant you were here and the next instant you were countless parsecs distant.

  Someone "out there" has found another way to use Holzmann's theories! It was a full Mentat Projection. He knew its accuracy from the new questions it produced.

  Murbella's Other Memory ramblings haunted him now even though he recognized basic Bene Gesserit teachings in them.

  Power attracts the corruptible. Absolute power attracts the absolutely corruptible. This is the danger of entrenched bureaucracy to its subject population. Even spoils systems are preferable because levels of tolerance are lower and the corrupt can be thrown out periodically. Entrenched bureaucracy seldom can be touched short of violence. Beware when Civil Service and Military join hands!

  The Honored Matre achievement.

  Power for the sake of power... an aristocracy bred from unbalanced stock.

  Who were those people he saw? Strong enough to drive out Honored Matres. He knew it for a Projection datum.

  Idaho found this realization profoundly dislocating. Honored Matres fugitives! Barbaric but ignorant in the way of all such raiders even from before the Vandals. Moved by impulsive greed as much as by any other force. "Take Roman gold!" They filtered all distractions out of awareness. It was a stupefying ignorance that faltered only when the more sophisticated culture insinuated itself into the...

  Abruptly, he saw what Odrade was doing.

  Gods below! What a fragile plan!

  He pressed his palms against his eyes and forced himself not to cry out in anguish. Let them think I'm tired. But seeing Odrade's plan told him also he would lose Murbella... one way or another.

  ***

  When are the witches to be trusted? Never! The dark side of the magic universe belongs to the Bene Gesserit and we must reject them.

  - Tylwyth Waff, Master of Masters

  The great Common Room in the no-ship, with its tiered seating and raised platform at one end, was packed with Bene Gesserit Sisters, more than had ever before been assembled. Chapterhouse was almost at a standstill this afternoon because few wanted to send proxies and important decisions could not be delegated to service cadre. Black-robed Reverend Mothers dominated the assemblage in their aloof clusterings close to the stage but the room swirled with acolytes in white-trimmed robes and there were even the newly enrolled. Groups of white robes marking the youngest acolytes were sprinkled around in tight little groups, flocking for mutual support. All others had been excluded by Convocation Proctors.

  The air was heavy with melange-perfumed breaths and it had that dank, overused quality it got when conditioning machinery was overloaded. Odors of the recent lunch, strong with garlic, rode on this atmosphere like an uninvited intruder. This and stories being spread throughout the room heightened tensions.

  Most kept their attention on the raised platform and the side door where Mother Superior must enter. Even while talking to companions or moving about, they focused on that place where they knew someone soon would enter and create profound changes in their lives. Mother Superior did not herd them all into a great Common Room with a promise of important announcements unless something to shake the Bene Gesserit foundations was at hand.

  Bellonda preceded Odrade into the room, mounting to the platform with that belligerent waddle which made her easily recognizable even at a distance. Odrade followed Bellonda at five paces. Then came senior councillors and aides, black-robed Murbella (still looking somewhat dazed from her Agony only two weeks past) among them. Dortujla limped close behind Murbella with Tam and Sheeana at her side. At the end of this procession came Streggi carrying Teg on her shoulders. There were excited murmurs when he appeared. Males seldom shared assemblies but everyone on Chapterhouse knew this was the ghola of their Mentat Bashar, living now at the cantonment with all that remained of a Bene Gesserit military.

  Seeing the massed ranks of the Sisterhood this way, Odrade experienced an empty feeling. Some ancient had said it all, she thought. "Any damned fool knows one horse can run faster than another." Often at the minor assemblages here in this copy of a sports stadium she had been tempted to quote that bit of advice but she knew the ritual had its better purposes as well. Assembly showed you to one another.

  Here we are together. Our kind.

  Mother Superior and attendants moved like a peculiar bundle of energy through the throng to the platform, her position of eminence at the edge of the arena.

  Mother Superior was never subjected to the mass scrimmage of assemblies. She never had elbows jammed into her ribs or felt the trodding of a neighbor's foot. She was never forced to move as others moved in a kind of inchworm flow composed of bodies pressed together in unwanted proximity.

  Thus did Caesar arrive. Thumbs down on the whole damned thing! To Bellonda, she said: "Let it begin."

  Afterward, she knew she would wonder why she had not delegated someone to make this ritual appearance and utter portentous words. Bellonda would love the pre-eminent position and, for that reason, must never have it. But perhaps there was some lower echelon Sister who would be embarrassed by elevation and would obey only out of loyalty, out of that underlying need to do what Mother Superior commanded.

  Gods! If there are any of you around, why do you permit us to be such sheep?

  There they were, Bellonda preparing them for her. The battalions of the Bene Gesserit. They were not really battalions, but Odrade often imagined ranked Sisters, cataloging them by function. That one is a squad leader. That one is a Captain General. This one is a lowly sergeant and here is a messenger.

  The Sisters would be outraged if they knew this quirk in her. She kept it well concealed behind an "ordinary assignment" attitude. You could assign lieutenants without calling them lieutenants. Taraza had done the same thing.

  Bell was telling them now that the Sisterhood might have to make a new accommodation with their captive Tleilaxu. Bitter words for Bell: "We have gone through the crucible, Tleilaxu and Bene Gesserit alike, and we have come out changed. In a way, we have changed each other."

  Yes, we are like rocks rubbed against each other for so long that each takes on some of the conforming shape required by the other. But the original rock is still there at the core!

  The audience was becoming restive. They knew this was preliminary, no matter the hidden message within these hints about Tleilaxu. Preliminary and relative in importance. Odrade stepped to Bellonda's side, signaling her to cut it short.

  "Here is Mother Superior."

  How hard the old patterns die. Does Bell think they don't recognize me?

  Odrade spoke in compelling tones, just short of Voice.

  "Actions have been taken that require me to meet on Junction with Honored Matre leadership, a meeting from which I may not emerge alive. I probably will not survive. That meeting will be partly distraction. We are about to punish them."

  Odrade waited for murmurs to subside, hearing both agreement and disagreement in the sounds. Interesting. The ones who agreed were closer to the stage and farther back among new acolytes. Disagreement from advanced acolytes? Yes. They knew the warning: We dare not feed that fire.

  She pitched her voice lower, letting remotes carry it to those in the high tiers. "Before leaving, I will Share with more than one Sister. These times require such caution."

  "Your plan?" "What will you do?" Questions were shouted at her from many places.

  "We will feint at Gammu. That should drive Honored Matre allies to Junction. We then will take Junction and, I hope, capture the Spider Queen."

  "The attack will occur while you are on Junction?" This question came from Garimi, a sober-faced Proctor directly below Odrade.


  "That is the plan. I will be transmitting my observations to the attackers." Odrade gestured to Teg seated on Streggi's shoulders. "The Bashar will lead the attack in person."

  "Who goes with you?" "Yes. Who are you taking?" No mistaking the worry in those cries. So the word had not yet spread through Chapterhouse.

  "Tam and Dortujla," Odrade said.

  "Who will Share with you?" Garimi again. Indeed! That is the political question of most interest. Who may succeed Mother Superior? Odrade heard nervous stirring behind her. Bellonda excited? Not you, Bell. You already know that.

  "Murbella and Sheeana," Odrade said. "And one other if Proctors care to name a candidate."

  Proctors formed little consulting groups, shouting suggestions from group to group, but no names were submitted. Someone had a question though: "Why Murbella?"

  "Who knows Honored Matres better?" Odrade asked.

  That silenced them.

  Garimi moved closer to the stage and looked up at Odrade with a penetrating stare. Don't try to mislead a Reverend Mother, Darwi Odrade! "After our feint at Gammu, they will be even more alert and reinforced on Junction. What makes you think we can take them?"

  Odrade stepped aside and motioned Streggi forward with Teg.

  Teg had been watching Odrade's performance with fascination. He looked down now at Garimi. She was currently Chief Assignment Proctor and no doubt had been chosen to speak for a bloc of Sisters. It occurred to Teg then that this ludicrous position on the shoulders of an acolyte had been planned by Odrade for reasons other than those she voiced.

  To put my eyes closer to a level with adults around me... but also to remind them of my lesser stature, to reassure them that a Bene Gesserit (if only an acolyte) still controls my movements.

  "I will not go into all of the weaponry details at the moment," he said. Damn this piping voice! He had their attention, though. "But we are going for mobility, for decoys that will destroy a great deal of the area around them if a lasgun beam hits them... and we are going to englobe Junction with devices to reveal the movements of their no-ships."